30 MINUTES TOO LATE

Gaisano store to put camera inside security room
If a customer is caught shoplifting, the suspect must be turned over to the nearest police station “within 30 minutes after his arrest.”
That's the store policy of Gaisano Metro-Colon, but that's not what happened in April 12 when 23-year-old Mario Alfie Ducayag was taken to the “security room” by store personnel where he ended up beaten to death.
Thirty minutes is also the estimated time Ducayag spent inside the room, where he was brought in alone and handcuffed, based on video tapes of security cameras installed outside.
As the inquiry of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) into the death gets underway, store officials are taking stock of security measures, which include closed-circuit TV cameras and house detectives watching the crowd of shoppers, and revisiting guidelines about the proper handling of suspected thieves.
No surveillance camera records what goes on inside the security room.
But after the fatal mauling of Ducayag, management has decided to install one there, said retired Maj. General Victor Garcia, vice president for security of Metro Gasiano.
Their initial finding: Ducayag stole a pair of Sandugo rubber slippers, and tried to to hide it in a plastic bag of other items he had paid for in the supermarket.
“There was shoplifting,” said Metro Gaisano lawyer Gerralyn Sayson in an interview but she emphasized that this does not justify the fatal mauling of the young man.
Store officials showed CDN video footage of Ducayag placing an object inside a plastic bag while walking near an elevator.
The violence used on Ducayag and the identity of the perpetrators is the bigger issue facing Metro Gaisano, the NBI and police authorities.
“As far as our procedures are concerned, security officers of the department stores are not supposed to maltreat, harm, physically abuse or even verbally abuse suspected shoplifters,” said retired Maj. General Garcia. He told Cebu Daily News the role of the store's security officers is just to fill in the Suspect's Information Sheet and turn over the shopper to the police.
If the suspect is a minor, the youth shall be handed to barangay officials for turnover to their family. Lessons are being drawn from the tragedy.
“The management is now reviewing the procedures. I think these are already good enough but as to the enforcement and how rules are followed – that's something we should look into,” said Cerwin Eviota, spokesman of the department store.
REVIEW VIDEO
At the NBI, Regional Director Antonio Pagatpat said his men finished examining the uncut footage of the downtown store's CCTV cameras.
“It was a long video from the start until sinundo siya (Ducayag) ng medics. Maiksi lang from the time na dinala na siya sa loob until sinundo siya ng nurse, around 30 minutes,” he said. (From the time he was brought inside the room until the nurse arrived was about 30 minutes.)
He said the videotape was turned over by Gasiano Metro “so we assume this is not tampered but we would still have this authenticated.”
So far, the chief security officer Mauricio Doblados and security guard Arnel Tanudra have been placed on preventive suspension by Gaisano Metro. Both men were asked to expalin in writing what happened. Sayson, the company lawyer, said management continues to evaluate what to do with Jeffrey Aquino, the security camera operator, since his work contract with the department store expired last April 22.
Only one arrest was made last Sunday but Aquino was released by the police with no charges filed amid a confusing exchange of accusations.
Doblados and an agency guard, Melvin Boyles, earlier executed affidavits with the police saying the camera operator had mauled the young man.
Aquino, in turn, told reporters he witnessed the shopper being punched several times in the chest by Doblados with full strength until he collapsed and fell unconscious from a chair.
Who of the three is telling the truth, store officials said they leave it to NBI and law enforcers to determine.
“We rely on the competence of our authorities to find the truth and bring out justice,” read the official statement.
Aquino recently said he fears for his life now, and will ask the NBI for protection. NBI's Pagatpat said the employee can come to the agency for evaluation first.
“Maalamang may threat sa kanyang buhay,” he said.
Cesar Jose Jesena, Gaisano Metro vice president for marketing and retail development, said the fatal mauling of the store customer was an unexpected case.
“It's really a shock to us. We've been around for 30 years. This is the only time we're having this kind of crisis,” he said.
MISLED
If credibility is an issue, Gaisano Metro officials confirmed yesterday that Doblados, their head of security, had initially misled them.
Doblados earlier told his superiors that the young man who was handcuffed and brought to the security room had suffered a “seizure” and died.
Garcia, the vice president for security, said Doblados later admitted that he had lied about the seizure. Garcia said the chief security officer of Gaisano Metro Colon told him that Ducayag was mauled by Aquino, the camera operator.
Aquino, whose job is to spot potential shoplifters from live footage of security cameras, eariler admitted that he was the one who put handcuffs on Ducayag on orders of Doblados. Aquino denied participating in the mauling. “He (Doblados) was worried that those who were less guilty would suffer a larger degree of punishment. They are being bothered by their conscience,” Garcia said.
Confidential intelligence officers Cesar Celerio and Melvin Boyles were also reportedly placed under a preventive suspension by Negrense Security Agency.
“Based on the evidence we have, we believe there was indeed a shoplifting. That's our statement,” Sayson said. But the lawyer said Gaisano Metro would leave it to the NBI to find out who mauled Ducayag.
“That's not the issue I'm investigating,” said NBI 7 agent Bernard dela Cruz, when told about the store's finding of shoplifting.
He said he's looking into the mauling itself involving agency security guards and confidential intelligence officers of the department store.
Ducayag's mother Fe Soledad said she doesn't want to give significance to Gaisano Metro's claims.
“We choose not to talk about that (shoplifting issue). Let them do what they want. For us, there was no shoplifting. But regardless of what really happened, they have no right to kill my son,” she told Cebu Daily News. /Ador Vincent Mayol, Reporter with Correspondent Peter L. Romanillos